She draws a knife from the solid beech block, slowing as the blade screams against the sealed wood hugging its razor sharp edge. The clicking of her feet against the cold tiled floor sounding like a siren announcing her arrival, click, clack, click, clack.
She feels her heartbeat in her ears, in her throat, and right down to the base of her feet, there’s no way she should be here now.
She approaches the bottom step, looking back at every single one of the thousands of times her feet had stepped this case, searching for the boards those that crack and creak, weighing each place of her shoe as she creeps up one new height after another, ever closer to the cause of her concern.
Two steps from the summit and the banging in her temples drowns out the sound of the world outside, the pumping and buzzing in her ears, silent yet deafening. Not knowing what lies in wait beyond that solid-oak door she knows so well, she freezes a moment.
One step, two, inches to go, she leans in. The cold knob in her palm turns quietly until, clunk; the door swings free, the line of bright light a blade across her eye, blinded for just one moment.
Two deafening pumps of her heart and she sees again, clear as day. She shouts
“Honey, oh my god! You’re home, I wasn’t expecting you till next week.”